7 September 2005

Fuels ... Out, for Autumn!

In answer to your question, it's meant to sound like Alice Cooper's "School's Out". I've just heard that if there is not a cut in petrol duty in the next week all the UK refinerys are going to be blockaded by the Fuel Lobby group starting on the 14th September. Their basic grip is that for every £1 of petrol you put in your tank (and that may not even be a litre now), 74 pence of that goes straight to the government in tax. Five years ago they brought the country to a standstill (almost) and induced all sorts of panic buying because petrol was over 80p a litre, now the average is 94.6p! The big point they make about the taxation is that they get £36 billion a year from petrol and road tax, yet only £6 billion is spent on roads and local transport. You can be damn sure the remaining £30 billion isn't spent on the environment or researching greener fuels. The AA's website also highlights the cost of a litre of petrol in other countries which is quite shocking. Last month a litre of unleaded cost 85.2p in France, 74.22p in Ireland and 37.9p in the US!!! I think I might take the ferry over to Dublin and fill up my car...